05.04.2023-06.15.2023
In the Age of Goethe
Watercolours, gouaches, drawings and prints
Artists of the exhibition: Salomon Corrodi (1810-1892), ALR Ducros (1748-1810), Neapoletan Gouaches (18-19th c.), Edward Lear (1812-1888), Jean Antoine Linck (1766-1843), Gabriel Lory son (1784-1846), Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Giovanni Volpato (1735-1803)
In Goethe's time (1749-1832), people travelled, learned, discovered new lands, read and wrote, and drew. People travelled through Europe - marvelling at its magnificent cities and bucolic landscapes - to Italy, the Alps, and to the Orient. Our gallery will become a microcosm of this world, allowing you to walk from Geneva to Jerusalem in a heartbeat, feasting on a banquet of visual memories of Goethe's times and places, tempting you, in the grand tradition of Faust, to know more by seeing the wonders of the world.
We exhibit a beautiful selection of works on paper by Abraham Louis Rodolphe Ducros (1748-1810) and Giovanni Volpato (1735-1803), original watercolours and coloured engravings. The Swiss artist living in Rome had joined forces with the famous Italian engraver to produce coloured engravings that were mainly sold to tourists passing through the city, but also to illustrious patrons such as the Swedish King Gustav III or Catherine II of Russia. His most important patron was Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), who had an important collection of the artist's landscapes in his castle at Stourhead in Wiltshire. Ducros was one of the artists who gave watercolour landscape painting its letters of nobility and made it a genre in its own right, alongside artists such as John Robert Cozens (1752-1797) or William Turner (1775-1851). The choice of very large formats, beautifully framed, contributes to this effect and gives the viewer the impression of being in front of real paintings.
Image
Abraham Louis Rodolphe DUCROS (1748-1810) – Giovanni VOLPATO (1735-1803)
Vue du Panthéon à Rome
Gravure au trait à l’eau-forte aquarellée sur papier vergé – 51,2 x 73,6 cm